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The group, cult, or leaders control your Behavior. There will be rules and possibly restrictions and rituals about sleep, food, clothing, sexuality, or other daily activities. Studies of human minds have shown that restricting calories, and especially protein, can have the effect of making a person’s mental abilities become less—they become more passive and less able to think for themselves. Their minds become ‘foggy’ without proper nutrition. Similarly, making it difficult or impossible for a person to have good quality REM sleep will also reduce their abilities to think clearly and make them more susceptible to brainwashing.
The group, cult, leader, or leaders control what Information is available to you. They may only allow you to read a certain book—say a biography of their founder, or a book of prayers. They may only allow you to watch certain TV programs, or none at all. They may not allow newspapers, magazines, or other information into the home where you live. They may hold rallies, prayer meetings, group sessions in which they tell you the news and information they want you to have, and you may not be allowed any other meetings or exchange of information with people around you.
The group, cult, leader or leaders control your Thoughts. They may convince you that they know your thoughts already, or they may coerce you into ‘confessions’ where your thoughts are judged and scolded. During behavior and information control sessions they will repeat certain words and phrases that will eventually become the framework through which you see the world.
Finally, they control your Emotions. They may make you fear ‘outsiders’ so that you only want to see and speak to other cult members and leaders, they may cause you to fear some unknown threat such as the Government or Aliens. They will praise you and reward you when you conform to the group’s way of behaving and thinking, and punish you with ridicule, ostracism, or deprivation of some kind if you display thoughts or emotions that are not within the group’s approved ways of thinking and behaving.
To the BITE model, the only comment I would add is that the power structure of a cult usually seems to center around a living person. People’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior within a cult are always centered around pleasing or serving this person. Information usually comes from this person in the form of direct communication to the followers, or from their most trusted high level servants who will say that “Leader said to tell you—-” In most cases, once the central cult leader dies or abandons the cult, the cult will eventually fall apart.
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Editing to add: Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here.
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